Five Simple Steps to Help with your Health Goal: End Neck Pain!

For many of us, it is easy to create our to-do lists of all the things we’d like to accomplish, but it is much more difficult to actually take those lists and stick to them until the goal is reached. With such busy day-to-day lives, it is easy to push aside our long-term goals in order to deal with our current situations.

However, there are a few easy steps to follow that can help you make your goals a higher priority in your daily life. By sticking with these steps, you’ll finally be able to start checking some of those items off your goals list:

1. First of all, you need to set a specific goal. The more specific, the better. If you keep it vague, for example “I want to get rid of my neck pain,” it is difficult to keep track of progress or even know when the goal has been met. However, stating “I want to work on improving my neck pain by improving my neck posture over the next six months” is much easier to plan for and achieve.

2. Secondly, you must be realistic with yourself when setting goals. Setting a goal to lose twenty pounds in two weeks is neither realistic nor safe. If you set a goal too high, or set too many for yourself at one time, it can be overwhelming and discouraging. By setting attainable goals, it will be easier to reach and you’ll get a great feeling of accomplishment when you do.

3. Next, you need to plan for your goal. Setting an attainable goal is a great first step, but the next thing you must do is break it down further so you know each smaller step needed in order to reach that higher goal. Start off with small enough steps that you can begin today. Another great idea is to make a timeline; without dates to keep you on track it is much less likely that your goal will be accomplished.

4. Now you’ll need to make sure you keep record of your progress. If your goal involves losing weight, write down everything you eat and drink for a week. If your goal is to improve your neck posture, write down every time your posture slumps and things that bring on forward head posture for a week. By writing things down, you become more aware of your habits. By becoming aware, it is easier to take control and change those habits. Recording your overall progress is also a great way to stay motivated as you see all the things you have accomplished so far.

5. Finally, you’ll want to take a look at your progress with a critical eye. If you’re trying to lose weight by running every day, but you hate to run, it’s likely your goal will not stick for the long-term. However, if you love to swim, then that would be a better fit for you to help you stick to your goal.

It’s great to have goals to strive towards, but it can quickly become overwhelming if you are not prepared. By setting a specific and attainable goal, planning, making timelines, and keeping records of your progress, suddenly that seemingly impossible goal is under your control and you’re on your way to achieving it!


Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief. Bookmark this on Delicious Stumble It!

Make Your Neck Exercises Habit!

So often after asking a patient how they have been doing with their home stretches and exercises, they reply: “Oh yeah, I haven’t been doing them as much as I’m supposed to.”

One of the problems is this- he or she gets out of pain and tends to forget about doing them. The exercises, stretches, or our traction neck pillow may get you out of pain quickly, but that doesn’t mean you should stop using them. To really make change in the spine more permanent you need to continue with all of these things. If someone comes to see me that’s had neck pain or back pain for one year, the research shows it could take one year to get out of that pain and correct the problem. It depends on the severity and length of time the problem has been going on.

Once one relieves their neck pain they can cut back on their neck exercises, but still do them once in awhile. One of the reasons is that there are constant stressors on our neck- working at a computer all day, general stress, gravity …

One of the best ways to remember your neck stretches or exercises is to make it part of your daily routine, or habit! For example, do them every morning after you get out of the shower, do them in the shower, do them at work before your day gets going …

If you do them regularly they start to become habit. So even after you get out of pain, it’s a good idea to do some simple stretches and exercises to prevent future injury. It will only take a couple of minutes and is very important for your health. Don’t neglect your body, or it starts neglecting you!


Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief. Bookmark this on Delicious Stumble It!

Amazon Testimonial #48 for Arc4life's Cervical Neck Pillow

Here it is, Amazon's Testimonial #48 for the Cervical Traction Neck Pillow:




"This is by far the most comfortable pillow I've used"

"After having trouble finding the right pillow and going through a number of mornings with stiff neck, I came across this pillow. This is a back sleeper pillow. What I like most about the pillow is the raised neck and shallow middle for my head. Most of the other pillows I've tried were either too soft and didn't have enough neck support, or were too firm and felt like I had my head tilted upwards. I even tried the memory foam, both normal and ergonomically shaped pillows. While the ergo memory foam pillow would have extra neck support which I wanted, I felt it was tall and stiff lifting my head up to high and exaggerating the curve of my neck. I would usually end up taking a softer pillow and scrunching it up behind my neck to add extra support without all the head elevation.

This pillow is almost 3 pillows (maybe 4) in one. The top main side (V shaped side) has the most neck support and bracing to help keep your head centered. If you rotate it 180 degrees, (so the V looks like an A) there is slightly less neck elevation/support if the V side is too extreme for you. If you prefer less neck elevation, flip the pillow over. The back side has a softer neck support area and but still has the shallow center for your head.

This is by far the most comfortable pillow I've used because of the neck support and shallow center for my head. If you're a back sleeper and can't find the right pillow to support your neck, try this out. "

- A.Forward, California 04/19/2010

The Cervical Traction Neck Pillow is currently available at Amazon.com and at Arc4life.com, under the category Neck Pillows > Traction for the Neck.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief. Bookmark this on Delicious Stumble It!

Is It Normal To Have Neck Pain?

No pain is normal to have. Pain is a warning sign telling you something is going on. Take your car, for example; if a red light on your dash starts flashing, you know something needs to be fixed. You wouldn’t just ignore it for the next few weeks or cover up your dash, you would remedy the problem.

Your neck pain is much the same, you don’t want to just cover it up with pain killers, and you don’t want to ignore it, or maybe you can’t ignore it because it hurts too much.

However, this is what a lot of people do. This is what leads to more problems or worse neck pain. If you leave pressure on a nerve, that nerve starts to atrophy or degenerate, and at a certain point that breakdown can become permanent.

One simple fix to relieve neck pain and take pressure off nerves is to use a good neck pillow. Our #1 recommended pillow is arc4life’s Traction Neck Pillow.



Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.


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Neck Pillow Success Story #137

Sara had been suffering with neck pain for over 4 weeks. She tried a number of different pillows and neck pillows to help relieve her neck pain. It wasn’t until she tried the cervical linear traction pillow that she awoke for the first time in weeks with no neck pain.

Some people, like Sara, may get results almost immediately, others it may take some time. In this individual’s case, she has tried neck pillows before and she has also seen a chiropractor. So, for Sara, it will be able to adjust to a new neck pillow or neck roll.

For a customer that has never used a neck pillow or neck roll, he or she may have some neck soreness when they first start using the traction pillow. It will also depend on the severity and amount of time of their condition.

So, in a lot of cases, people will take to this pillow right away, but it is also completely normal to have soreness in the beginning with this neck pillow too. In fact soreness or feeling good are both good signs that change is occurring. People with neck pain that are the same day after day is often a sign it will take longer to fix the pain.


Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.


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Tips To Fight Insomnia

Insomnia is when someone regularly has trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep. According to the Dept. Of Health - 64 million people suffer from insomnia and insomnia affects women 1 1/2 times more than men.

Heres some tips to getting a good nights sleep.
1. Don’t eat after 7:00 pm.
2. Don’t engage in a lot of mental exercises right before bed. What I’m getting at is: doing work, or things that bring on stress.
3. Try light reading before bed.
4. Sleep in as complete darkness as you can.
5. Don’t sleep with your cell phone or computer wireless router near your head.
6. Try to get your body into habit- go to bed at similar times each night, wake up at similar times too.
7. Make sure it's not your pillow that is waking you up.


Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.


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Getting Rid of Neck Pain: Develop a Wellness Plan

Make a plan to end your pain and suffering. This should start with research into your condition. Listen to your doctors, but this doesn’t mean you have to accept their diagnoses or treatment. For example, their treatment may include strong medications that mask your problem and not necessarily something that addresses the cause of your neck pain.  For the short term, pain medication or muscle relaxers may help, but be careful on taking anything long term.
                                                   
Also, essential to your plan of attack is to have a support team in place. This may include family, friends, therapists, doctors, etc … Not only can you learn from the experiences and knowledge of your support group you need them for encouragement, support, and friendship.

Make your environment conducive to healing as well. What exactly does this mean? This refers to your surroundings- air, water, sunshine, what you’re eating, work environment. Make sure things are healthy, low-stress, non-toxic …

When it comes to getting rid of neck pain you really have to play a vital role in taking care of yourself. Remember that most healing comes from inside-out and not outside-in like a pill or drug. Medications may help, but they are often a very small piece to the puzzle of it all.


Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.


Additional Reading

• Natural Pain Relief for the Neck that Does not Include Surgery
• The Neck Pain Relief Kit
• How to Check your Own Neck Posture
• Which Neck Pillow is Right For My Needs?
• How to End Neck Pain By Doing a Cervical Tractio Protocol at Home

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